"Imagine if the government chased sick people with diabetes, put a tax on insulin and drove it into the black market, told doctors they couldn’t treat them, ... and then sent them to jail. If we did that, everyone would know we were crazy. Yet we do practically the same thing every day in the week to sick people hooked on drugs." - Billie Holiday, 1956.

The drug war is a religious war against a spiritual plant. That old-time religion, and their crusades.

Ronald Reagan, 1980 [47][48]: "Leading medical researchers are coming to the conclusion that marijuana, pot, grass, whatever you want to call it, is probably the most dangerous drug in the United States, and we haven't begun to find out all of the ill effects, but they are permanent ill effects. The loss of memory for example." - Reaganism: Cannabis war, trickle-down economics, code-word racism, hate radio, mass incarceration.

They estimate the cost of covering all of the roughly 40 million Americans still lacking health insurance would be equal to just about half of the $375 billion in projected savings. The balance of those savings, they write, could 'upgrade coverage for the tens of millions who are under-insured'. ... Of the total of $471 billion in BIR [billing and insurance-related costs], an estimated $375 billion—or 80 percent—is 'additional spending' that would be eliminated by 'a simplified financing system' such as single-payer, the report said.

Health insurance companies suck money from their hosts, but provide no tangible service. Just like toll-road companies. See: Toll Roads Are A Bad Idea. Both just handle the money, and take a cut of the money. They build costly buildings to house the accounting staff, and claim deniers. Costly 16-lane toll plazas are built, often on expensive urban land.

2016 election. "The Blue Wall is a block of states that no Republican Presidential candidate can realistically hope to win. ... Voter turnout was awful. It was more awful for the Democrats but the GOP won 52 percent of 35 percent of the vote: in other words their mandate is 17 percent of the registered electorate (and 13 percent of those eligible to vote)."

Obama on marijuana legalization.[155]. "My suspicion is that you’re gonna see other states start looking at this". The Washington Post. Jan. 22, 2015. Obama also said: "Last year you had the first time in 40 years where the crime rate and the incarceration rate went down at the same time."

Ronald Reagan, 1980 campaign speech[158]: "Leading medical researchers are coming to the conclusion that marijuana, pot, grass, whatever you want to call it, is probably the most dangerous drug in the United States, and we haven't begun to find out all of the ill effects, but they are permanent ill effects. The loss of memory for example."